Expressions
by RealmOfPossibility
Summary: Robin's encounters with Regina teach him what lies behind the sharp words and dark eyes…Season 3B.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N I wanted to try something involving as many 3B scenes as possible between Robin and Regina because, let's face it-they were awesome. I also wanted to try writing from Robin's point of view and add some internal depth to those scenes, which the show can't give us. It's really just a series of snapshots about the growing feelings of these 2.**

**And just so we're clear, I'm not touching the last 2 minutes of the finale with a ten-foot pole.**

**Expressions - Chapter 1**

It was an awful cacophony of screeching. No good ever came from such a sound and the man known to many as Robin Hood was well versed in the noises of the forest.

Someone was in danger.

He turned toward the noise, his eyes narrowing as his senses all began to come alive. A flash of movement and his head snapped up, his eyes gazing into the sky. The movement came again and his brow furrowed at the…creature. Some kind of winged beast hovered, shrieking angrily, its face turned down toward the ground. Robin followed that gaze to see what had captured its attention.

He saw the flash of a black cloak, heard raised voices. Women's voices.

Robin's feet flew over the ground, his eyes scanning the spaces between the trees as he tried to gauge where the creature was and from which angle it was preparing to attack. He gripped his bow tightly and reached for an arrow from his quiver, notching it into the weapon. He came to a stop and saw the creature diving down, heard one of the women cry out, a name perhaps?

Robin planted his feet and raised his bow as the beast (it now appeared to him to be a winged simian) flapped its wings heavily, its teeth flashing into a frightening grin. He pulled back the arrow, his eyes focused solely on his target, his mind blocking out its fearsome howls.

The animal came at the women again and a split second before he released his arrow, Robin opened his mouth and cried out a warning.

And let the arrow fly as the women ducked to the ground, the arm of one reaching out to cover the back of the other.

It was over in moments and the quiet was as sudden as it was stark.

It was only the two women, alone in the overgrown forest. Not peasants, their attire was far too grand for that. When he had lived on his father's estate, women's finery was as common as their complaints that they didn't have enough of it. So, yes, they were clearly nobility to his trained eyes.

Especially the woman dressed in exquisite black, her hair wound up in an elaborate style. It occurred to him momentarily that he and his men could probably live for weeks off what her clothes had cost to make. What his own clothes had once cost.

Robin walked forward to where the two women half-knelt, half-sat in the dirt and held out his hand.

At his voice, their heads turned suddenly to face him.

The woman in black was pale, though if that was from fear or merely from her usual complexion, he had no way of knowing. Her dark eyes, though, did not seem afraid at all. She appeared more surprised than anything as she glanced at his outstretched hand and as her eyes ran over him, not meeting his own just yet, her expression grew increasingly disapproving. Haughty. Unimpressed.

He knew a look like that very well. He was about to be rebuffed. Dismissed like a too-eager servant. Sure enough, she brushed his assistance aside. Her voice was low and sharp and carried no hint of trembling whatever. Neither did she introduce herself, but once her companion greeted him, it became clear very quickly who she was.

So, _this_ was the famed Evil Queen. The woman who had brought mayhem and madness to their land. The caster of the Dark Curse, trapping them in a decades-long nightmare. Though he had never had direct contact with her, he had heard the stories and there were many of them.

They didn't really do her credit, though.

The women and children of the villages scattered throughout the kingdom would lead anyone to believe that she was an enormous dragon dressed up in pretty, mighty costume, her stature towering over them with commanding ease. If some of the tales were to be believed, her voice was a menacing snarl that would send grown men quivering as she spat venom that penetrated into their very hearts. And if those same tales held true, her smile was an ugly sneer that struck people into statues at the mere sight of it.

No, those stories did her no credit at all, though meeting her moments after rescuing her probably did not indicate her true nature. For one thing, she was actually quite small, hidden in grand garments as she was, though anyone who said so would probably not survive to the next sunrise. She sounded more seductive than snarly, though the tone was biting, the words rude and meant to offend. And her expression was set, as something long kept for face-to-face contact. Impenetrable and untouchable.

The men unlucky enough to cross her path (those that survived) over the years had sometimes called her beautiful, but they were usually unwilling to talk about her at all. They had more than likely had to sacrifice something in order to escape unscathed and who wanted to spend time discussing their own indignities, their own terrible dreams come to life?

She was, though.

Beautiful. As many things were that hid behind them a frightening truth.

Her eyes flashed. Her chin jutted proudly. She stood there unapologetic. Uninterested. Not a dragon, but not a benevolent Queen.

As unimpressed as she was, he was right there with her.

He didn't like her.

No, not much at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Thanks for reading. Please remember there's no real plot to speak of, just the musings of a writer who is trying to crawl into Robin's head and write the evolution of his feelings for the queen. It's fun for me and I hope it's fun for you, too. I'm not going to tell you which scene each chapter is based on, if you've seen 3B, you'll guess after about 2 lines.**

Chapter 2

He held the torch aloft, his breath steaming in the frigid night air. He squinted beyond the flame, just able to make out the disappearing figure of the Queen as she slipped between the trees.

He was troubled.

He walked after her, his boots crunching the leaves and dead twigs scattered along his path. Yes, many things were troubling him. He was certain his heart still hadn't recovered from that terrible moment when his son, the joy of his existence, his one remaining link to a wife he had loved so dearly, had stood in the face of danger and called out for him.

And he hadn't been able to answer that call.

Endless nights he'd spent tending to his beloved boy, soothing nightmares and fevers, being both a father and a mother to a boy who'd lost too much, too soon. There'd been the occasional accident, cuts and scrapes and bruises, but nothing that had really compared to that shrieking beast flying straight towards…

His jaw clenched as he tried to block the image from his mind. Another quickly replaced it, one that perplexed him, yet by no means was it a terrible image. By no means.

She'd smiled.

For it was the Queen who had saved his son. Robin was probably with the greatest majority of people in their party who would have declared just about anyone else capable of standing in the line of fire for a stranger. Not the Queen, though. She was aloof and patronising and sardonic and what would she be doing, saving a child she barely knew by sight?

And then, she'd proved them all wrong. No fear, no hesitation. And certainly no evil. He'd been watching on, panicked and horrified, but her expression had brooked no interference with his son at the hands of the monkey. A wave of her hand had rendered it harmless and he'd never been quite so thankful for magic as he had at that moment.

And she'd smiled. The result had been a transformation of her whole face, making it beautifully gentle as she'd presented Roland with the gift. Robin had not been in the habit of being in proximity to the Queen often since they'd met. But, he'd observed her, finding himself wanting to understand who on earth she was. She'd been rude and ungracious at their sudden introduction, but there were things there beyond mere words and a sneering lip. He was certain of that.

He'd heard the talk of her companions from the place they called…Storybrooke. Of how she'd saved them from another curse (though at times they seemed reluctant to use the word 'saved,' as if they couldn't quite reconcile themselves to who had done the saving), making some kind of great sacrifice, though what it was, he did not know. And she kept the company of Snow White, her sworn enemy. Robin had enemies of his own and the idea of sitting together and sharing meals and conversations with them…? The Queen and Snow seemed to talk long and often, though the Queen's expression did not change. Her eyes remained dull, sparked with the occasional flash of anger and her mouth was constantly turned down. But, to his eyes, she didn't appear sour or angry, not really, knowing her as little as he did.

He rather thought she was shrouded in some kind of private misery.

Which was what had made the transformation of her expression so astonishing. Her mouth had opened into a wide, friendly smile, her dark eyes filled with a great warmth. At the time, he had been so grateful that he'd barely been able to think straight, but that expression on her face hadn't been for him, not at all. It had been for his son. Her face had barely registered any emotion at all until that moment.

And it made him wonder what she'd left behind in that other place. _Who_ she'd left behind.

Yes, these thoughts troubled Robin. He knew the heart of a person was a complicated thing. There were those who considered hearts in terms of good and evil, black and white, one or the other. And he knew there was great evil in the world and that she had committed a lot of it. But, he'd also seen too much in his years to simplify all that made up a person.

Some were saying she'd changed from what she'd once been.

He wanted to see if it was true.

A noise up ahead drew his attention away from his inner musings and back to his objective. She'd be displeased to see him, he knew that much. Her tone had made it apparent that she wished for no assistance in her task.

That didn't matter. She was going to get it anyway. The look of shy awe on his son's face had told him well enough.

Robin stood on a high part of the path, between two trees and looked down into the clearing. The Queen stood with her hands in the air, holding up a giant boulder as if it weighed nothing at all. He was bold, some would say reckless, and this woman, with so many facets that he was beginning to realise, didn't frighten him. His initial dislike might have softened and he might not know what to make of her just yet, but…

She intrigued him.

And now she'd spotted him.

He felt his lip twitch upwards into a smirk. Quite predictable, really.

Yes, she was mightily displeased to see him and rather than being bothered by that, he felt up for a challenge. Her face hardened the closer he came, the less inclined he was to do as she said and leave her to the task. The wall between them was almost tangible, a wall she created with her own will.

But, there was something else too. It flickered across her face minutely as they spoke.

Genuine surprise that he should owe her a debt.

A reluctant comprehension that he could perhaps be an honourable man.

And…

A concession of sorts. She'd looked at him with that look that did not suffer fools to live, but there'd been no malice in it. And it was at that moment that he knew she did not consider him an enemy. Certainly not a friend or even an acquaintance. But, not an enemy.

He rather thought he felt the same way.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N Thanks for reading, and hopefully enjoying. **

**You'll see a few lines from 3x13. **

Chapter 3

He wanted to curse himself, pun intended. He should have seen it coming a mile away, should have guessed what she was going to do. Instead, he was standing here like a fool with his feet stuck to the ground.

Idiot!

He stared at the doorway where she had disappeared and wanted to turn back the last hour of time, go back to the tunnel and see the warning signs. Wanted to smack himself on the back of the head.

_Wake up!_

He'd felt somewhat like prey being played with by a predator when she'd said he should have stayed behind. She clearly enjoyed having him on edge. For a moment, he had imagined a thick cloying atmosphere had drifted through the dark tunnel and her black eyes had shone with a hint of menace, glittering in the light of the fire. It was at that instant he had better understood the fear in men's souls at being at the mercy of the Evil Queen. He understood the stories, understood the flashes of _something _in their eyes when her name was mentioned, when they were asked how they had escaped her clutches. Down here, alone, he couldn't judge them for whatever exchange they'd made, whatever promises they'd given, however much begging they'd done. He himself had been pursued by her Black Guards and he and his men had undertaken every precaution to ensure they did not get captured. They'd known not to be put in her sights, even if they didn't quite _know_ just what that would entail.

He considered himself to be a strong man, one able to withstand many things.

It made him wonder what one would have to withstand should they come face to face with the Queen at her most terrifying.

But then, unexpectedly, she'd opened the door. It wasn't the first time he'd been surprised by her. She'd asked him about himself, his family, something that would never have occurred in the world before the Curse. It was a pain he kept buried in the deep places of his heart, brought out in a quiet moment when he needed to remember her. His Marian. His love. His loss.

The road back from that had been almost insurmountable, but for Roland.

Bringing himself back to the present for a moment, Robin squatted down to study his shoes more carefully. Was it too much to hope that the enchantment keeping him locked to the ground was contained only in his shoes? He wiggled a foot around a little, tried to lift it from the sole of the shoe. He could feel the bottom of his foot rubbing loosely at the inside, back and forth. But then when he attempted to lift, something seemed to press down. His mouth screwed up in concentration. It didn't hurt, his pain came more from the frustration of it. He let his breath out in a long huff and leant an arm on his knee.

Yes, he should have known. Should have known from the look on her face when he'd mentioned a child.

_What do you know about that?_

Her dark eyes had seemed bottomless when she'd turned to look at him and it was as if all the tiny cracks in her mask had become visible to him in a split second. Her voice had lost its sharp edge, that edge which kept her above and beyond all before her, replacing it with a low husky timbre, like her throat was full and words were difficult. He'd felt a tightness in his chest at that expression in her eyes, as if she was holding herself together within the confines of her black cloak and to let go was to break apart.

Yes, that tightness was empathy. He knew heartbreak, knew that precipice one stood on in the wake of losing everything that made sense to the heart. Knew that to give in would be to cast adrift into the abyss, into nothingness.

He'd wanted to so many times after Marian.

It was hard to imagine the Queen quitting herself in such a way. From his understanding, she seemed more the type to drag herself back from every edge, grapple over every obstacle. But, at that moment, it hadn't been the Queen standing beside the coffin.

It had been Regina. A mother.

Weighed down with heartache.

_The Witch? I don't care about her._

That was when he should have seen, should have made a move. She'd been mixing a sleeping curse for herself before his very eyes and he'd stupidly been blind to it!

_No one anyone will miss._

He doubted she'd meant for him to hear that. Something in him had twisted inside at her hooded eyes, her hollow tone, the way he suddenly saw how holding herself up appeared such an effort, made him desperate. Desperate to somehow stop her, say the right thing that would change her mind. Save her? He hadn't known, still didn't, why he should feel that way, why her fate should be any concern to him, but the thought of her passing through that door and walking off alone to cast herself into that so-called 'eternal middle…'

But, his words had been for nought. She had gone to a place where words meant to comfort simply passed through her like a chill wind. He had been in that place and perhaps _that_ was where his desperation lay, in that he, at least in part, had some understanding of how she felt. No one deserved such a fate. No one deserved so much pain that it should radiate from their face in such a wistful, longing smile as the one that had graced her face, reached up to her eyes and turned inward to burrow back into her heart.

Robin expelled another sighing breath, shaking his head and glancing back to the doorway through which she had disappeared. What would he do if he somehow managed to break through this enchantment? Would it disappear on its own the moment she pricked her finger and succumbed to the curse? He'd search the castle until he found her and then what? She'd said herself that her only True Love was her son and he was gone forever. There would be no kiss to awaken her. Would he carry her back to this bedchamber and summon Snow and her prince to view the body? Would he assist them in preparing to encase her, preserve her as a monument to her grief? It was, essentially, a suicide. All her rudeness, her bitter barbs, her haughty condescension was nothing more than a thin veil.

Covering a broken woman, crushed by despair, confident in the belief there would be none to mourn her.

He gritted his teeth and slapped his thigh, standing up again. What hope was there of ever understanding her now? What he'd desired to know, to learn, to see would never come to light. Whatever lay behind her dark crown and evil deeds would remain forever a mystery. And he _knew_ there was something else.

And then he heard it.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Footsteps.

Heart rising into his throat, Robin whipped his head around to see her, the Queen, sailing by him, her steps filled with purpose. He felt like laughing, he was so glad to see her. He felt himself released from the enchantment and shuffled his feet in relief.

As she spoke, the strength in her voice had returned, rich and melodic, and her shoulders had lost all trace of their previous heaviness. She seemed different from even their first meeting, alive and purposeful, an irrepressible force that would sweep up everyone in close proximity to her.

She disturbed him.

She fascinated him.

And while he watched her flounce and move and work herself up, he remembered what he had seen in the crypt and in this very room.

Perhaps more layers to her character than she'd shown to anyone in a very long time.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

She was enjoying herself. He'd been certain of that.

Certain by the way her dark eyes had fixed on him, amused and glinting, by the flicker of interest in her gaze, intrigued at the way he moved into her space, effectively trapping her against the furniture. By the banter they'd engaged in.

_It's not magical. Especially not the next day._

Yes, she was enjoying herself.

And then she wasn't.

He imagined a person used to being in her position would know what he knew as a nobleman's son. Never let those beneath you see what was underneath. If the land was caught up in the turmoil of war, smile and make polite conversation. If there was unrest over the boundaries of farmland, deal with the problem coolly and with a level head. If machinations were taking place behind one's back, calmly and methodically smoke the guilty parties out.

He'd long ago ditched such affectations, deciding that open and honest was the key to winning hearts and minds. He despised pretension, remembering the way it had been. As if it really hid anything at all. After what had happened, after the loss of his Marion, he only wanted what was real.

She was power and poise, he could tell, and used to remaining distant. Above. Some people were able to do that, use every tool at their disposal. Their words, their commands, their movements.

Their beauty.

She'd been unflappable from the moment she'd caught that arrow. He still couldn't figure out how the bloody hell she'd done it. He had never seen anything quite like it. He would never admit he had been mightily impressed by it, but he had. Perhaps that was why he'd let himself get carried away, caught up in whatever magnetic pull he'd found in her. After he'd realised who she was and that, just maybe, she wasn't going to tear him limb from limb for shooting at her, he'd been fascinated by her. Well, fascinated and a little insulted. She certainly seemed to think that any and all weapons he might use in the hunt for the Wicked Witch would be like tossing pebbles at an ogre.

She'd appeared not at all threatening. That interested him a great deal.

Argumentative, yes. But not threatening.

He truly did despise falseness. They'd matched each other in barbs and semi-cutting remarks that had had very little sting to them and had caused a rising anticipation within him that made him want to continue all day. A game had been quickly set up between them, _something_ with undertones.

They'd only just met, but he'd spotted…something. He considered himself quite capable at reading people and he was sure he saw…a glimpse of what lay beneath the smirks and retorts. That clever words and an air of untouchability weren't all there was to see.

_I prefer Regina._

She'd corrected him, not with Your Majesty, but with her name. It had made him immediately start to wonder who she was supposed to be in this town, under that curse. A reinvention? An honest attempt at reconciling the past?

But, then she'd asked him if she'd met him before and it was the tone in her voice that caught him. A bemusement, a touch of uncertainty. A realness. And with so much hidden behind those eyes, a furrowing of her eyebrows.

That was genuine.

Regina, not the Evil Queen. Was she really so human?

He'd begun to think so, as they had searched the house. All the stories he'd heard from so many different sources were quite contradictory to the woman in front of him.

She seemed…pleased that he'd noticed. Or was she pleased at her ability to strike fear into the hearts of the ordinary? Perhaps both, he thought wryly.

He wasn't entirely sure what had made him take it further. Perhaps he'd wanted to ruffle her feathers, see more of what he'd seen outside the house. Open the closed book.

Look at her dark eyes from only inches away.

The tales of her beauty had not been exaggerated. In fact, those telling the tales seemed to have held back. And from such close proximity, he was allowed the privilege of enjoying it. Her smooth skin. Her full lips. Those eyes that engulfed him.

He was interested. He was attracted. To her. And, inches apart, he had the unusual feeling that she felt something of the sort too. She made no move to extricate herself, seeming happy to continue the back and forth they'd been entertaining themselves with. Allowing the tension to continue its climb…

And now, he was standing here, by the table. Alone.

It had all come undone in the strangest way. And that's when he'd known that who he was seeing was the real Regina and not anything any other label would make her.

That look on her face. What was it?

Bewilderment? Shock? Confusion? All of them in equal measure?

He'd been surprised by the warmth of his concern for her. They'd know each other barely an hour. But, something had been wrong. To let such depth of emotion show after a lifetime of living with a façade, something had been so wrong.

He'd watched her go, baffled by the instant change. She'd practically run from the room without so much as a look back. And here he was, minutes later, frozen to the same spot. The delightful tension had been sucked from the room, replaced by a…what was it? A disappointment? A regret that they'd been cut short? Or something bigger?

A sense of loss.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Thanks for reading. This chapter contains, among others, Robin's reminiscences of a scene that was never actually seen on the show-when Regina asked Robin to guard her heart before her showdown with Zelena-so, of course, I'm flying blind there.**

**Lines from 3x16 here.**

Chapter 5

Alone by the light of the moon and in the chilly night air, Robin was having trouble getting the image of her face out of his mind. And he was finding it difficult to come up with reasons why he should try.

After all, she was the only person in his entire life who had literally given him, entrusted him, with her heart. He had been allowed a brief glimpse of it, most likely because when she had told him what was in the bag she carried, the look on his face must have shown complete disbelief.

Yet, there it had been.

Her _heart_.

And she had asked him to watch over it as one might be asked to look after a parcel. The whole thing had barely taken five minutes, before she had hurried off to take on the Witch. Any emotion she had shown during their earlier conversation in the woods had long disappeared, replaced with a determination to meet Zelena head-on.

So, here he was, doing what she had asked of him. Guarding the heart of the Queen from the Witch and the Dark One, all the while thinking of little but its owner.

He was slowly but surely gathering for himself a collection of intriguing and hard-to-forget encounters with Regina Mills. An acquaintance that had begun with interest and an almost-playfulness on both sides, had turned awkward when she had introduced him to the fairy. Tinkerbell, wasn't it?

Since he had lost Marian, there had been few women to catch his eye. Not that he had really gone looking. There had been the weeks of sleepless, hollow-eyed grief in which it had taken the strength of all his Merry Men to simply get him out of bed each morning, to function as their leader.

Or simply as a human being.

Then, the months after that when his attention had been solely focused on learning how to be both father and mother to his son. His chest still tightened as he recalled that day, that sorrowful day, when he realised Roland no longer asked where his Mama was. And knew the day was coming when his boy would no longer have any recollection of the woman who had carried him, birthed him, loved him in a way that had been so beautiful to watch.

Robin clenched his jaw at the unwelcome distraction from his present train of thought.

When he had finally felt like he had stepped back into the world again, there had been one or two women who had piqued his interest. Lovely women, full of life and humour, women who had had the ability to make him laugh again. That had surprised him.

But, he had let himself go no further than a slight dalliance. Memories of his Marian couldn't be supplanted by something so meagre.

And then, nothing. It was him and his boy and they made do. And it was enough.

But now, this woman. This woman who stirred some kind of fire in his belly after a handful of meetings.

Yet, Robin had remembered from his days as a cocky, confident youth…recognised the signs of a brush-off in the diner that morning. He wasn't sure why, though. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing a piece of the puzzle.

He kept this all to himself, though. She was a woman who had many things on her mind, the weight of all kinds of revelations, the biggest of which he himself had witnessed when Zelena had revealed their familial connection. Regina wore an excellent mask, he knew that already, but he had caught a glimpse of what lay beneath after Zelena exited with a flourish. That hard line of anger had darkened her eyes and he could easily imagine another time, back in the Enchanted Forest, when that look could have brought a person to their knees.

But, there had been no anger when he had happened upon her in the woods, later, as if she had been disarmed of it. It was the first time she had seemed small to him. Not diminished, not by any means, but pressed down by all that had occurred. Of course, as had been the case in their first meeting, something inside him had compelled him to walk forward, to meet her behind those walls of hers, to turn another page in the closed book.

And she had let him.

_Stunning in every way._

It was a line he could have easily applied to the woman he had sat next to on that log. But, though her gaze had been turned away from him, he could see her eyes had been looking far beyond anything visible to him.

It had been the first moment he had truly wanted to touch her.

Not in any great passion, but simply to reach up with his fingers and trail them across her cheek, to feel her skin with his own. As he had listened to her voice thick with unshed emotion, he wouldn't have been surprised to feel the wetness of a tear under his touch. Her shoulders had visibly sagged, albeit momentarily, under the weight of…sorrow. Of a world suddenly turned on its head. This was the reaction she had been unwilling to let the rest of the world see.

It had felt like something precious. Like something he wanted to protect.

Footsteps and quick, gasping breaths.

Robin's eyes snapped up and he stood quickly, his eyes peering into the darkness. He saw the beams of light cutting through the night and…her shadow behind. He called out to her and they met at the base of the tree where her heart was buried.

Her hair was somewhat tousled, but she really looked no worse for wear and he wondered what had transpired between her and her sister. Surely more than a simple talk about not appreciating things, though he certainly wasn't missing the almost-smile on her face as she looked at him now. Was she trying to let him know she appreciated _him_? He so wanted to figure her out and yet at the same time, the mystery of everything that made up the unfathomable substance of Regina Mills was completely captivating…

He couldn't deny that he felt a jolt as she grabbed his hand and again placed her heart in it.

_Can't steal something that's been given to you._

In her eyes was so much meaning, but she was the only one who knew its secret. He felt that same desire to touch her wash over him, to cup her cheek and watch as she tilted her head into his hand, closing her eyes at the contact.

The moment was fast disappearing and he couldn't resist trying one more time, still cradling her heart in the palm of his hand.

"You still owe me that drink."

Her back was to him now, but he felt the smile on his face break out at her reply.

_Yes, I suppose I do…_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

He would've sent that arrow straight through the Dark One's throat and not even thought twice. He would have cut the imp down where he stood, turned his back and walked away…

Robin sighed and stabbed at the pile of wood within the fire. It hissed and popped in response, sending sparks outward to float down to the grass. His head throbbed, his chest felt heavy, weighed down by the burden of…

His terrible choice.

It would be Roland every time. There was simply no question about that. He would choose his son over everyone and everything without even having to think about it. His precious boy, whom he had cradled in his hands on the night of his birth and vowed with every ounce of his being that he would wear any injury, fight any foe, travel to any corner of the realm to give him a life.

He gritted his teeth at the memory of that arrow slicing through the air towards Roland, stopping short mere inches away. And almost stopping his own heart in the process.

There would have been no reasoning with Rumplestiltskin, no deal to be made that might have saved both his boy and Regina's heart. In these bleak times, he would be afforded no such hope.

Yes, it would be Roland every time.

But, Robin still felt the crushing pressure of having to hand over the heart of a woman whom he wished no harm to. In fact, he felt so much the opposite that he had spent the better part of the day strategizing on how he might get it back. Some of his plans had been ill-advised, most had been downright foolhardy, but he felt reckless, as if the force of his determination would be enough to counter both the Dark One and the Wicked Witch. As if he could rescue Regina by will alone.

He had seen in her resigned expression that she knew instantly what had transpired when she had arrived at their camp. But, the way she had visibly flinched when he had spoken the words had gutted him, increasing his frustration at having let her down so completely. His apology felt utterly flimsy compared to the magnitude of her heart being stolen away. Under _his_ watch.

But…

He shook his head at the thought.

But…

She'd sought revenge for less. Had tortured and murdered for far more trivial sins. And yet, her first thought had been for who might have been hurt in the confrontation. And the understanding that her heart, her life was to come in a distant second to protecting his son's. That was the mother in her and his admiration for this woman…Regina…had gone up inestimably.

But, it was more than that now, wasn't it? More than just interest and respect and admiration? With the passing moments, with every minute they spent in each other's company, he found himself drawing closer to her, imagining her dark, dark eyes looking into his, wondering what her beautiful black hair would feel like between his fingers. Of how the corners of her eyes might soften if she smiled at him.

He felt something for her. This woman who was capable of great anger, great destruction, and yet had a warmth about her, a depth lying under the surface that didn't fit anyone's description of who she used to be.

But, that was the point, wasn't it? It was who she _used_ to be. And it was clearly not who she wanted to be. Not now.

Robin sighed and stared at the flames, absently poking at them with a stick. Everyone else had gone to bed long before, leaving him with the chirping insects, crackling flames…and a myriad of thoughts. He so hoped he could retrieve her heart. He hoped he could take it gently from the bag she had kept it in and place it back in her hands. He hoped, somehow, that he could convey his sorrow for having lost it in the first place. He hoped she would forgive him, hoped for it more than forgiveness from himself.

And then, above the noises of the night, he heard something else, something that grew ever more familiar to him.

Hurried footsteps making their way over the cold dark ground towards him. He looked up.

Yes, she was walking towards him and he stood to meet her. Her face was…full…of so much feeling and her mouth opened as if she wished to impart something of great importance. But, she remained silent.

He couldn't help but apologise again. Even as he spoke, he couldn't help but hear the emptiness of his words, knowing that she was a woman of action. But, she was suddenly looking at him just as he'd imagined, her dark eyes piercing deep into him and it only encouraged him on.

If he didn't know better, he might have thought the expression in her eyes was apprehension. Or something deeper.

And then, he felt all thought leave his head. Completely. Her hands were reaching up and out, towards him. Her hands that held such power were gripping his jacket, her fingers curling around the material fiercely. He felt her strength.

He felt himself be pulled and she was an unstoppable force, one he couldn't resist even if he'd wanted to.

And he didn't want to.

He was certain of that even in the split second before her lips met his with a warmth that shot fire in his veins. He reacted instantly, meeting the force of her mouth with a force of his own. It felt endless, timeless, but it lasted barely a few seconds before she pulled back. He felt himself breathless as he watched the way her face shone in the firelight, her eyes wide with anticipation, bewilderment…and perhaps a little of the hope he himself had been thinking of.

He reached for her and into that endless moment again.


End file.
